Chicotin pulled the bell; a maid-servant, covered with a layer of dust from top to toe, answered the summons and said:
"Light to seal a letter, for there is nothing here! not a candle on the mantelpiece, no sealing wax on this desk--if that's what you call it."
"But there's wafers in the box where the night light is. Look, monsieur."
"Will you be kind enough to take all that away! Do you suppose that I would touch that filthy box? Do you suppose that I use wafers? I tell you that I want wax, a seal and a candle. Come, make haste."
The girl left the room grumbling. The gentleman moved his chair to the desk and began to write, swearing at the paper, the pens and the sand.
The maid returned, bringing a copper candlestick, with a tallow candle lighted, and a stick of wax, which she placed on the desk.
"As for a seal," she said, "madame says that she ain't got any, but that a big sou will do just as well."
"What's this you have brought me?" cried the gentleman, pushing the candle away in disgust. "Ah! what an outrage!"
"What's that? an outrage! I've brought what you ordered."
"You dare to bring me a tallow candle--for this certainly is tallow, isn't it?"
"Of course it's a tallow candle, as you want to use sealing wax."
"But a wax candle is what you ought to bring; as if one could use anything else! Since when has it been permissible to offer tenants a tallow candle? What do you take me for, my dear?"
"Your dear! Why, monsieur, I take you--I mean I don't take you at all; I bring you the best that I could find; there ain't no wax candle that's been used, and madame said that this was good enough to light your wax."
"And this place dares to call itself a hotel! There are furnished lodgings for masons here, and nothing else!"
"Take that candle away, I say. Pouah! how it smells! Let's make haste."
He sealed his letter, using a topaz set in a ring, which he wore as a charm on his watch chain; then he dismissed the maid, who muttered as she left the room:
"What airs he puts on! If he was a pacha, he couldn't put on any more. Why don't he have a hotel of his own?"
"Here, my boy," said the gentleman, when he had written the address on his letter, "take this note and this bouquet, which I stole from those gentlemen for the pleasure of playing a trick on them, for I hadn't the slightest idea of buying a bouquet. But since I have it, I must make some use of it, and I am not sorry to show myself a gallant once more. So you will carry this bouquet and this letter to this address. Can you read?"